SICK SOCCER

The objective of this article is to provide you with an awareness to play more with the “head” (aka use your brains) if you want to extend your soccer career. A program with a bunch of “SAQ’s” and “Weight Training” is real cute son. But even better if you schedule a  time to develop your intelligence.

Soccer’s my passion and there’s no way that I’m stopping at 30. I want to play competitively at the top for the longest possible period. Unfortunately as you age, the physical demands of soccer can put you down. Imagine yourself at 35 surrounded by people who are physically at their peak around 18~23. They’ll beat your ass: their faster, sharper, more agile, and they run more.

Retirement for Professional Athletes in General
This is something I found about average retirement age for athletes:

The average world class athlete retires from his sport at the age of 33. Incredibly, the average NFL player is retired by the age of 28, the average world class wrestler by 24, and the average elite gymnast by 19.

I suddenly became anxious when I read this. I was expecting to compete till 40…but the average looks pretty young. But then I realized something very important:

• American Football emphasizes more on physical demands than soccer
• Wrestling injuries, especially in the neck, can put a stop to one’s career pretty quickly
• Romario, at 44, still plays for a professional team to this day!
• In soccer, intellect is a much more valuable asset than physical ability

Why do some soccer players retire early then?
It’s stupid to come up with a single reason why some players retire earlier than others. There’s a multitude of reasons.
However in this analysis, I will be comparing 3 groups:

Power Players
Adriano, Christian Vieri, Gabriel Batistuta

Speedy Players
Michael Owen, Ronaldo (Original)

Technical Players (or players with an asset you can’t take away)
Zidane, Zola, Maldini, Alan Shearer, Pele

My Personal Analysis
Let’s investigate the “peak age” where these players played their best:

Power Players: Vieri (24~29), Batistuta (22~31), Adriano (20~24)
Speedy Players: Owen (18~23), Ronaldo (18~29)
Technical/Intelligent Players: Zola (?~34), Maldini (?~36), Shearer (22~35), Zidane (23~33), Pele (~34)
According to my analysis (whether you agree or not), do you see the trend between Power/Speed players against Technical Players? The players in the technical group tends to play much longer than the players in the other groups.
Not saying the other players are stupid. They just relied more upon physical attributes which diminish greater over time than technical and intelligence attributes.

This is one of the reasons why Owen’s peak was past at 23, even though Maldini was playing consistently til 40!
It’s very important for a team to have players like Michael Owen who can blaze past players with his speed to reach the end of the ball. But if you put yourself in Owen’s shoes, it hurts to see fresh young players who have greater physical abilities than him – because that’s what he relied on to produce results.

Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi realized this early. He’s one of my favorite players.

When he was 19~21, he used to dribble all the time. He dribbled past 5 players for f*ck sakes!

However, now it’s like he’s a different player. As of February 15th 2010, Messi has the highest assist rate (8 assists) this season. Incredible. Even if he tears his Achilles Tendon which will make him slower than my grandma, he’ll still keep on playing way over his 30’s. Why? Because he’s developed intelligence. He relies much less upon his physical abilities.

It’s not the dribbling that astonishes me – it’s his positioning, how he connect the passes, and the brilliant assists he does to help the team thrive. On the surface, he has a brand: a great dribbler. But now he’s developed an asset that no-one can take away – elegance and intelligence.

You can say the same for Cristiano Ronaldo. He used to suck balls when he came to Man Utd. Look how effective he’s become now.

Beckham? If you take away his passing, crossing, and decision making abilities, I can beat his lilly ass any day.

That’s all he has – and that’s all he needs! He’s slow, doesn’t run at all, and his left foot is a flop. At 34 he’s playing for AC Milan – one of the best in the world.

Let’s not forget Romario. He was still at his peak bagging goals like crazy at 36! He had an innate ability to finish, and insane technique. I’m probably stronger than him physically and I’d beat him in a 100m spring now. But the difference between him and me boils down to intelligence and technique. Here’s a video to remind you of this monster:

So how do you develop intelligence?
To be honest, demographics plays an important role. When I used to live in England and Australia, the emphasis was all on physique, not intelligence. The technical/intelligence level of players there were very low compared to the rest of the world.

After talking to people who understand intelligence,  I learned that soccer’s not about running back and forth. It’s not  about “sticking to your man like glue.” It’s not just about pumping up and motivating yourself. It’s a game of elegance. It’s using your intelligence. If I take one good look at a player, I can tell immediately whether he’s intelligent or not. And it doesn’t come overnight. But if you have a system in place that makes intelligence as important or even more than your physical training, you’ll see the difference in no time!

The purpose of this article was just to give you an awareness that intelligence is important.

But I’ll give you a short tip:

Watch professional soccer matches and analyze it

If you’re going to analyze a match however, you’ll need to take a very different stand-point, a fresh new perspective on the game of soccer.

Changing your perspective
What do you see here? A cheap old 30 cent light bulb you’d find anywhere.

Dig Deeper…

What do you see now? I see a state of the art piece of technology which took decades of hard-work, trial-and-error, changing strategies, experimenting, constant inspiration, and the burning desire to persevere until one succeeds.

It’s like the game of soccer, what’s on the surface is Steven Gerrard’s dynamic long-shot, and Ronaldo’s dribble past 3 players to score a brilliant goal. However, don’t make that your primary focus. Study the build up to the goals, the positioning of the players off the ball (especially in YOUR position – ie: Forward, Wing, Left-Back). Look at how players create space and how their team-mates run into that space to receive the ball. Study instead how Steven Gerrard was able to get into that space which allowed him to do the long-shot. Study the positioning of his feet next to the ball, how much he pulls back his legs when shooting, and where he lands after he shoots.

The quality is in the details.
At first it may be difficult but do it consistently and that intelligence I’m talking about will come extremely quickly!
Best of luck training!

Side note
I was on my Mac over an hour looking at ways to increase your sports career as an elite athlete. I was originally trying to find ways to keep you young physically, but this article turned out to be a blast!
I’ll get to more on reducing cell oxidation and using supplements as a way of extending your sports career physically. Stay tuned & feel free to comment!